23 executive producers. You could pay writers or producers. The producers voted to pay producers.
Often times, Executive Producers aren’t paid anything at all.
A good friend of mine’s father has 3 EP credits, but he had no involvement with the actual production of those films nor did he receive any payment for being an EP (outside of recouping a small investment on one of them). Often, an EP credit is the film equivalent of a university handing out an honorary degree to someone.
EP credits are frequently handed out as a way to acknowledge and thank someone who helped in some way. In the case of my friend’s dad, he was listed as an EP because he chipped in early funding for one of the projects and helped facilitate some introductions/meetings that were crucial to getting the other two projects green-lit, but that was the extent of his involvement.
EDIT: realized this post might come across as me being a “know it all”, and that wasn’t my intent. Only reason I know this is because years ago, I happened to ask “what the hell does an executive producer do?” when I was over at my friend’s house. I can’t remember what movie they had on, but the credits started rolling and there were an insane amount of producers, executive producers, supervising producers, etc. Just figured I’d share in case you were interested.
